I didn’t have to do anything to the coloring of the photo – it was already sepia.

For more sepia photos, visit Sepia Scenes:

For more Sepia Scenes:

What bothered me in particular about this was that my paternal grandfather sold eggs in the Depression! That was how he supported his family of seven (five children). He would venture out to the egg farms in New Jersey and bring them back to Brooklyn to sell. My father said at some point he helped with the accounting; at the end of each month, my grandfather would have no money left and need to start a new. There was never any savings, but at least they had food to eat.

What was your family doing in the 1930’s?

Update: See Risa’s post about her grandfather who had a store in Brooklyn.

in pain you shall bear children (Bereishit 3:16)

So, 13 years ago my little guy came out like a cannon ball. No time for the doctor to show up, no time for the epidural. The nurses were in a panic; they thought they would have to deliver the baby (a resident at the hospital did). There’s a technical name for women who deliver babies very quickly. I can’t remember it – I just call it “cannon ball pain.”

And then the parsha (portion of the Torah reading) tells me that I’m going to deliver in pain. No kidding.

At least it wasn’t emotional pain, like that of losing my mother. Her yahrzeit (anniversary of her death) is tonight.

My mother’s yahrzeit (anniversary of her death) is next Thursday evening, right before the bar-mitzvah. I already missed doing a post on her birthday; for the life of me, what were we so busy with this past Labor Day Weekend? I can’t even recall. But I am remembering Simchat Torah 11 years ago, when instead of going to shul, as I do every other year, I spent the days with my mother (who was dying and died a few days after Simchat Torah) and with my then two year old son. And I also recall Simchat Torah 13 years ago, when someone told me to dance a lot so the baby would come out that night, and I replied that after all that dancing I would like to have a good night sleep. And I did have a good night sleep…my son was born two nights later.

Simchat Torah is on Saturday night (on Friday night in Israel); it is a holiday in which observant Jews celebrate the Torah with dancing, reading the beginning and ends of the Torah, and of course, food.

Robin’s Summer Stock Sunday is a photo meme, but I am again taking liberties with that definition and including this video, as creativity is in important part of our summer. My daughter is in theater camp for three weeks; I hope to do a post about the play (Brave Little Tailor) she was in on Friday soon.

I got on the computer tonight, and I found a note from one of my favorite European bloggers, Jientje, who granted me this:

The rules to this award are :

1)Show the award in your blog.
2)Link back to the blog that tagged you.
3)Pass on the award to 8 blogs that you love. (Since this award has been around for a while feel free to pass it to as many or as few as you want.)
4)Inform the bloggers that they have been awarded.
5)Take your time, there’s no pressure, but try to check out the other awarded blogs.

I picked three (new to me) blogs:

• Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (G6)
• EllieVellie
• Confessions of a Startup Wife (Abbi)

Congratulations to the awardees, and thanks again, Jientje.

Hey, anyone know what “de Ouro” means? I had to look it up.

Baskin Robbins Fairytopia Birthday Ice Cream Cake, viewed from behind

The theme for this week’s Thursday’s Challenge is CELEBRATION (National Holiday, Independence Day, Commemoration, Party, Fireworks,…).

Liberty Bell in Independence Park, Jerusalem, Israel (photo: 2008)

So, what does the United States of America mean to you? I am especially interested to hear if you do not live here.

As I have talked a bit about my mother’s parents (see, for example, Greetings from Mariampole), now I am going to mention my father’s parents. In brief, when my grandmother was a little girl in a shtetl (I always think of a shtetl house as one that had dirt for floors instead of wood or linoleum or marble or whatever – she lived somewhere in the Austro-Hungarian Empire) she had to hide under a bed to protect herself from a pogrom. Soon after that, she and her family came to the United States of America, to New York City. On my grandfather’s side, his family came from Poland (from Głogów or Glogov). He and his siblings were fortunate to come in the early part of the twentieth century; he had cousins, however, that were caught in Europe in World War II. Supposedly, they hid from the Nazis and survived by hiding in the sewers. I feel so fortunate to have escaped these experiences (a pogrom and hiding in a sewer). And to have a beautiful family and home, and to be able to express myself without fear. Well, maybe a little, the general “opening up in public” kind of fear, not the Stalinist lock you up in jail sort. My maternal grandmother once spent the night in jail in the Soviet Union, but that is a topic for another time. I don’t even know that much to tell about it.

Little Leora, Zaydie, Bubby and my brother, somewhere in New York

Your turn.

The cake above was made last summer for my daughter’s birthday. Can you guess how I made the cake pink?

Okay, now tell me a bit about how you celebrate birthdays!

My grandfather’s name was Solon Friede. There was a blog discussion recently about names; in the discussion the question of naming after a relative came up. I can’t imagine having a child named Solon. As his Hebrew name is translated to Shlomo, my brother received that name as a middle name. My father had a brother named Shlomo who had died in his twenties, so the Shlomo was also for him. Do you have a naming tradition in your family? I am glad that my eldest and youngest bear the names of precious dead relatives. My middle son, who was born a few months after my paternal grandmother died, received a Hebraicized, masculine version of her name as a middle name. But there is an Aidel (her Yiddish name, in English she was Ida) in Brooklyn who is named for my paternal grandmother.

More on my grandfather in this post
About the Jews of Lithuania, where my grandfather was born

As this photo is sepia, I am including it in this new meme called Sepia Scenes.
Thank you, Mary!